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A siren, pulling a sailor from a boat & another stops his ears to avoid hearing the siren's song. Sloane 278,13th c.

Roman Chariot Toilet

The Women of Amphissa 1887 - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema British, born Netherlands, 1836–1912

Followers of Bacchus, the god of wine, awaken in the marketplace of Amphissa, Greece, where they have wandered from their home in Phocis during a night of ritual dancing. Amphissa and Phocis are at war, but the women of Amphissa graciously offer the bacchantes nourishment and protection. The painting illustrates an event recorded by the Greek historian Plutarch, which Alma-Tadema staged as a lesson in charity for his Victorian audience.

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A poem on papyrus Probably from Memphis, Egypt 19th Dynasty, 1204 BC

This New Kingdom papyrus contains a famous literary text which was composed during the early 12th Dynasty, but was regarded as such a classic it was still being copied over seven and a half centuries later as this example proves. Known as 'The Teaching of Amenemhat' for his son Sesostris, it records a historical event which took place at the end of the reign of the 12th Dynasty's founder in about 1955 BC, couched in a literary form. The text makes it quite plain that Amenemhat was assassinated and the dead king warns his successor to trust no one lest he too be betrayed.

The manuscript is written in hieratic, a cursive form the hieroglyphic script. It contains a junior scribe's copy of a classic poem, The Teaching of King Amenemhat I, written seven centuries earlier. The red dots mark the ends of lines of verse, while the signs in the top margin are the scribe's own corrections. It was written by a treasury scribe called Inena, who copied the papyrus in 'Year 1, month 1 of Winter, day 20' under Sety II (1204 BC).

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The Iliad, Book I, Lines 1-15 Homer

Rage:

Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,

Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon--
The Greek warlord--and godlike Achilles.

Which of the immortals set these two
At each other's throats?

Apollo,
Zeus' son and Leto's, offended
By the warlord. Agamemnon had dishonored
Chryses, Apollo's priest, so the god
Struck the Greek camp with plague,
And the soldiers were dying of it.

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The Fury of Achilles
Painting by Charles-Antoine Coypel.

The Rage of Achilles

Collection of Pornographic Art from Antiquity (1785)

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